{"id":4029,"date":"2008-12-01T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/senate-dems-nominate-cisneros-to-be-president\/"},"modified":"2008-12-01T02:01:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-01T08:01:00","slug":"senate-dems-nominate-cisneros-to-be-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/senate-dems-nominate-cisneros-to-be-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Dems nominate Cisneros to be president"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf they bust me up, so be it. I\u2019ve been on the back row before,\u201d Sen. Tim Jennings<\/a>, D-Roswell, told me in November.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The majority of Senate Democrats made public their intention to do just that on Sunday by nominating Sen. Carlos Cisneros<\/a>, D-Questa, to replace Jennings as the Senate\u2019s president in January.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Jennings has been under fire from members of his own party since he recorded a robocall and radio ad<\/a> denouncing attacks against outgoing Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson<\/a>, R-Las Cruces, just before Rawson lost his re-election bid on Nov. 4. Rawson was a top target of the governor and many other Democrats, but he was part of a loose coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats — including Jennings — who have been the only real check on the governor\u2019s power in recent years.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The secret-ballot vote to oust Jennings took place at a caucus meeting at the Isleta Casino and Resort outside Albuquerque. At the meeting, Senate Democrats voted to keep Michael Sanchez<\/a> of Belen as their majority leader, Mary Jane Garcia<\/a> of Do\u00f1a Ana as their whip and David Ulibarri<\/a> of Grants as their caucus chairman.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The question now is whether the Senate\u2019s Republicans and conservative Democrats will join forces to try to stop the attempt by the majority of Senate Democrats to replace Jennings with Cisneros. The vote on who will become Senate president won\u2019t take place until the Legislature convenes in January, when there will be 27 Democrats and 15 Republicans in the Senate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Those Democrats generally considered to be among the group of conservatives who might band with Republicans to keep Jennings in the leadership position include John Arthur Smith<\/a> of Deming and Mary Kay Papen<\/a> of Las Cruces. One question will be whether, if Cisneros becomes president, Smith is able to retain his position as chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cisneros, who has been a senator since 1985, told The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a> that he doesn\u2019t believe enough Democrats will join with Republicans to keep Jennings in the position, but Jennings indicated to that newspaper and the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> that he intends to fight for the job.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sanchez told The New Mexican that he hopes to have the matter resolved before the formal Senate floor vote at the start of the session — which, since he is the majority leader, means he hopes to ensure that Cisneros gets the job.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There\u2019s precedent for what Jennings apparently intends to try to do. In 2001, Richard Romero, backed by a bipartisan coalition, ousted Manny Aragon to become the Senate\u2019s president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf they bust me up, so be it. I\u2019ve been on the back row before,\u201d Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, told me in November. The majority of Senate Democrats made public their intention to do just that on Sunday by nominating Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, to replace Jennings as the Senate\u2019s president in January. Jennings has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}